Coping with a major reno.

How do you cope when your doing a major renovation.

Well I will tell you what I did and I hope it will help you. I've been in the middle of an entire kitchen redo from top to bottom, new windows, ceiling, walls, cabinets, lighting, the works. It all started off as a vision and a whole of excitement, I love demolition because I know what is to come and it has to get bad before it gets good. But then  reality sets in when there is no more kitchen sink, what now? I am one of those people that does not have a second kitchen in the basement. Well I did anticipate this so from the beginning I did make myself a make do kitchen in another area, after all a complete kitchen reno will take 3 to 4 months. when the old cabinets were removed they are in separate sections so I saved the cutlery section, it had 4 pull out drawers and and put a big cutting board on top to cover the open spaces since there is no counter top on it anymore, and with everything still in it pushed it into my family room where I set up my new preparing and eating space. Next I pushed my sofas to one corner and created a cozy seating on one side of the room and the other half was designated for my kitchenette. Basically I turned my family room into two functions, eating dinner and watching TV. I set up a table for prep and it housed my coffee maker, microwave, toaster oven (a must have, I made so many great meals in that), plates and some staples. I purchased a mini bar fridge for my new kitchen so I put it to good use in my new space and used that too. I had everything I needed and didn't
feel the strain of having no kitchen and at the same time the husband and kids thought it was so much fun having everything at hand right in the TV room.  I think they will actually miss it when I take it all away. I am at the 4 month stage, I am just waiting for granite now, I have not felt any stress although I do have some aches and pains from the work that I contributed but I made sure we always had a nice family dinner at the end of the day in family room and kept things as normal as possible for the kids. A glass of wine now and again helped too :)